A Fast Company blogger and former McKinsey consultant profiles the next generation business strategists: the "Outthinkers"

"Outthinkers" are entrepreneurs and corporate leaders with a new playbook. They see opportunities others ignore, challenge dogma others accept as truth, rally resources others cannot influence, and unleash new strategies that disrupt their markets. Outthink the Competition proves that business competition is undergoing a fundamental paradigm shift and that during such revolutions, outthinkers beat traditionalists.

Outthink the Competition presents stories of breakthrough companies like Apple, Google, Vistaprint, and Rosetta Stone whose stunning performances defy traditional explanation and will inspire readers to outthink the competition. Core concepts in the book include:

Discover the Eight Dimensions of Disruption

Learn to play by the Outthinker Playbook

Develop the Five Habits of the Outthinker

Implement the Outthinker Process

It's time to buck tradition in order to stay ahead. Outthink the competition and uncover opportunities hiding in plain sight.

Product description

Product Description

A Fast Company blogger and former McKinsey consultant profiles the next generation business strategists: the "Outthinkers"

"Outthinkers" are entrepreneurs and corporate leaders with a new playbook. They see opportunities others ignore, challenge dogma others accept as truth, rally resources others cannot influence, and unleash new strategies that disrupt their markets. Outthink the Competition proves that business competition is undergoing a fundamental paradigm shift and that during such revolutions, outthinkers beat traditionalists.

Outthink the Competition presents stories of breakthrough companies like Apple, Google, Vistaprint, and Rosetta Stone whose stunning performances defy traditional explanation and will inspire readers to outthink the competition. Core concepts in the book include:

Discover the Eight Dimensions of Disruption

Learn to play by the Outthinker Playbook

Develop the Five Habits of the Outthinker

Implement the Outthinker Process

It's time to buck tradition in order to stay ahead. Outthink the competition and uncover opportunities hiding in plain sight.

From the Inside Flap

Forge unexpected pathways to win strategic advantage

In business, you can face disruption in one of two ways. Like most peopleand most companiesyou can fall back on tried-and-true rules. They've always worked in the past, and you hope they'll work for you again. Or, you can recognize that the game has changed, and look beyond your current playbook to create an entirely new strategic reality.

If you pick the second option, then you are ready to Outthink the Competition. Written by business strategist and popular Fast Company blogger Kaihan Krippendorff, this groundbreaking guide identifies and appeals to a new generation of "outthinker" entrepreneurs and business leaders. These innovators succeed in today's breakneck business environment by spotting overlooked opportunities, leveraging underutilized resources, and seizing asymmetric advantages.

Outthinkers beat their rivals not by being bigger or stronger, but by producing breakthroughs. Outthink the Competition gives you and your team a proven system to harness this strategic creativity, and presents stories of outthinker companies that are successfully reshaping their industries, including Apple, Google, Rosetta Stone, Tesla Motors, and many more. You'll discover how you can:

Understand the nature and potential of today's business revolution

Force your competition into two-front battles that give you the high ground

If you want to win a strategic contest, don't let your opponents set the terms. Instead, Outthink the Competition and make the unexpected choices that will leave the competition disoriented and you moving ahead to master the next challenge.

Customer reviews

Most helpful customer reviews on Amazon.com

Amazon.com:
4.1 out of 5 stars
15 reviews

John Gibbs

5.0 out of 5 starsCompelling analysis of the new rules of business competition

16 February 2012 - Published on Amazon.com

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Outthinkers step outside of the accepted paradigms in which thinkers operate, acting differently because they see the world differently, according to Kaihan Krippendorff in this book. Ordinary thinkers at first dismiss the outthinkers, then they ridicule them, and then they try to copy them. But it is too late if the outthinkers have gained a sustainable advantage.

The secret to success for outthinkers, then, is to make a few strategic choices to which your competition will not be able to respond effectively. Examples of companies which have done this to their competitors include Google, Netflix, Sohu.com, Research in Motion, Intuitive Surgical, eBay, Apple, Southwest Airlines, Dell and Home Depot. In each case, the company seized a strategic option that others were ignoring.

The basis of competition between companies is shifting from an economies-of-scale environment to a free-flow-of-information environment. Improved communications are driving middlemen out of business. The pace of competition is accelerating. Self-organized citizens and customers are seizing control. A small number of outthinkers are succeeding, but the majority of businesses are treading water or going backwards.

The author goes on to describe the "new playbook" (consisting of key strategies which outthinkers follow), the "habits" of outthinkers, a step-by-step process for applying outthinking to any organization, and the phases involved in rebuilding an organization from within.

While the book relied a little too much on ancient Chinese military strategy for my taste, I found the author's arguments about the changing business environment convincing and his analyses of successful companies compelling. Business really has become more difficult and customers more demanding; in my opinion this book provides some very useful tools for envisioning ways of adapting to succeed.

5.0 out of 5 starsI really enjoyed reading the book and recommend to anyone who what's ...

4 January 2018 - Published on Amazon.com

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I really enjoyed reading the book and recommend to anyone who what's to transform your business and what to really think through ideas to disrupt the status quo. I read it one, and I want to read it again.